Our road trip to Central Asia: Day 70 Passu to Sost 6th Sep 09

Morning came and today we have to leave and head up to Sost to get our bus to the border to cross into China finally.

Ramli tried to take a shower but there wasn’t any hot water available so he just washed his hair and clean up. I bath the night before so I was still “clean”.. We packed up and headed outside to check out. The door to the reception was locked and we had no idea where the owner went. We waited and saw that the Chinese lady was also checking out and also heading to Sost today.

We put our backpacks at the road side to indicate to any bus to stop so we could get a ride to Sost. About 15mins later we saw the owner walking down the road towards us.. He might have gone for a morning walk. Ramli went with him to the reception area to check out and pay for the room. Before Ramli paid him he asked if we could get a discount as there isn’t any hot shower the day before and today morning and further more the power cut about 2100hrs till today morning. The owner “grumpy old man” just simply replied there is hot water yesterday night .. I checked and just kept quiet.. Hmmm

We sat outside from 0930hrs till about 1200hrs and there isn’t any sight of any minibus passing by.. What happen? Waited and waited patiently, and finally about 1300hrs a bus came by and stopped but was only able to take one passenger so the Chinese lady got in while we continued waiting..

waiting and waiting

1400hrs still no sign of any mini buses… It was getting colder and I wished I could have some hot tea but the owner wasn’t in..

Still waiting

1430hrs the owner appeared and asked us why we hadn’t got a bus.. he told us not to worry as he said there would be many mini buses coming soon… And miraculously he invited us to tea… Hmmm weird “grumpy old man” he made black tea as requested by Ramli and offered us apricots too…

We enjoyed our tea and apricots, chatted with him for a while before he clear the table and went and clean the rooms..

Finally about 1520hrs a minibus came and it was the same bus we took from Aliabad.. The driver squeezed us in and we were on our way thru the picturesque journey … Phew !! we thought we will have to sleep over at Passu another night..

We arrived at Sost about 1700hrs and paid Pkr100/pax = SGD1.75/pax for the 1.5hrs ride..Hmmm we were curious as we paid Pkk130/pax = SGD2.30/pax for the 4hrs ride from Aliabadto Passu.. But anyways it isn’t that expensive so we just paid and went along to buy our bus tickets to Tashkurgan the next morning. The bus ticket for 5-6hrs ride is really expensive … Pkr2000/pax = SGD35/pax.. Sigh

After headed to check into Asia Star hotel recommended by the driver.. Pkr300/night = SGD5.30/night.. The toilet is dirty and room is also quite filthy but tolerable so we took the room thinking that it will be only for 1 night… So no fuss and seems they have warm shower also..

After resting about 2 hours we headed out to the streets to see what they have… Many provision shops align the roads… We bought some local French fries and chips, samosas and pakora and headed back to the hotel for hot tea to warm ourselves.. We than ordered a plate of veg chowmien which came in such a huge portion for at least 4 pax we thought the guy had double our order since there was 2 of us but only 1 order. We tried our best to finish it while watching fantastic 4 – rise of the silver surfer on tv with one power cut… When we finished we paid for our food and room for the night and only found out that the chowmien is only 1 portion which costs only Pkr150 = SGD2.65… It was really worth it…